The protests against the large factory of cellulose and textile fibers that the Portuguese pasture Altri and the coruñés businessman Manuel García Pardo, dueño of Greenalia, project in Palas de Rei (Lugo) in the decade. With the plan to lift the postman during off-peak hours due to financing problems, Santiago hosted a large demonstration this Sunday which, with the cry of “Altri non”, caused its historic shell to collapse. Marta Gontá, spokesperson for Ulloa Viva, the local platform born to fight against the construction of the factory, celebrated the citizen response to the summons and insisted that if it is carried out, it will only bring “poverty”.
The project aims to produce 400,000 tonnes of soluble cellulose and 200,000 tonnes of sustainable textile fibers. It would occupy 366 hectares and would provide for massive capture and discharge of water from the Ulla River, a reservoir that flows into the Arousa Seafood River. It counts on the declaration of favorable environmental impact issued by the Xunta de Alfonso Rueda (PP). However, its promoters are facing serious financing problems, because they intend to pay the 1,000 million that their construction will cost with 250 million in public subsidies that have not been obtained. The rejection of its requests for European funds was delayed due to the fact that the plant is not connected to the electricity grid. A few days ago, Rueda recognized that the future of the factory that his government considers “strategic” was up in the air: “Faced with all these difficulties (the company) will have to decide what will ultimately happen.”
The Ulloa Viva platform, which promoted the movement against the postman with the Defense Platform of the Ria de Arousa, called for the demonstration this Sunday because it warns that the project is not at all dead. Kilometers of people supported their call with a march that ended in the Plaza del Obradoiro, just one year after another protest against macrocellulose spilled into that space. Two years in which cellulose promoters requested permission to capture 46 million liters of water every day from the Ulla River, one of the greatest environmental impacts known to environmentalists, have been completed, but the Xunta has still not been granted. “We believe that the time has come for Altri to publicly renounce his project. Moreover, we demand that he does so, because it is clear that they are not welcome,” says Manuel Santos, spokesperson for Greenpeace in Galicia.
The protest against the Altri factory brought together representatives of opposition parties, unions, environmental organizations and fishing corporations, the latter because of their feared impact on the Arousa River. “We ask the president of the Xunta to listen to the social cry that stops commercializing this industrial Francoism that Altri represents,” declared the leader of the BNG, Ana Pontón, about a project that “is still alive”. “We want to take care of the environment. Galicia can give much more than recognizing projects that are not available elsewhere.” Lara Méndez, number of the PSdeG-PSOE, stressed that the project did not start because “the government of Pedro Sánchez said no to Altri three times”, in reference to the calls for European funds in which its promoters did not obtain public aid and to their exclusion from the electrical planning designed by the central executive.
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